Swiss completes A340 retrofit with updated IFE/C suite

Passengers on the Swiss International Air Lines A340 fleet are now guaranteed to fly with the company’s newest product. The carrier announced this week that the fifth and final aircraft completed its retrofits and returned to service.

With the completion of our Airbus A340 cabin refurbishment programme we are further underlining our quality commitment, and now offer all our customers the same premium air travel experience, including inflight internet connectivity, on all our long-haul flights.

– Chief Commercial Officer Tamur Goudarzi Pour

The retrofit covers all three classes of service on board, with refreshed seats as well as an updated inflight entertainment and connectivity suite installed. The planes use Panasonic Avionics‘ solutions for the IFEC offering. While the updated entertainment solution provides a broad selection of movies complimentary to passengers the inflight wifi service is prices on a megabyte package basis and the rates skew towards the higher end in the industry. All seats offer USB power while the premium cabin passengers also have AC outlets available.

The first class seat is the same design as those found on the company’s newest planes, the 777-300ERs.

The business class seat is a very similar design to those found on the 777s, including the staggered layout. The “throne” seats are seen as highly desirable by some passengers traveling solo and Swiss typically charges extra to select that seat. The new A340 layout features only five of those, plus another 10 solo seats that are “half-throne” in layout. Combined these are still just a third of the total business class cabin.

The economy class section sticks with the comfortable 2-4-2 layout that the A340 is known for across 168 seats. It does taper to 2-3-2 in the back as the fuselage narrows.

For a collection of 16+ year old aircraft the new interiors bring a fresh and comfortable experience to passengers. This refresh should server the planes well until their likely retirement and replacement. Lufthansa Group ordered 40 787-9 and A350-900 aircraft in March 2019 with deliveries slated for 2022-2027. These planes are expected to fly under the Swiss, Austrian and Lufthansa brands, “primarily be replacing four-engine aircraft.”

SWISS operates its Airbus A340s on services between Zurich and Boston, Johannesburg and Shanghai. The A340 will also be deployed on SWISS’s new Zurich-Osaka (Japan) route, on which service will commence on 1 March.

About Seth Miller

Seth Miller has over a decade of experience covering the airline industry. With a strong focus on passenger experience, Seth also has deep knowledge of inflight connectivity and loyalty programs. He is widely respected as an unbiased commentator on the aviation industry.

He is frequently consulted on innovations in passenger experience by airlines and technology providers.

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@ Seth — Great timing on the retrofit. The FCQ and I are very much looking forward to our 4 segments on ZRH-PVG in F on this plane next month. Hopefully I can help her
use the correct aircraft abbreviations in her IG posts! 😉